Books About

As C.S. Lewis famously wrote, "If we have to choose, it is always
better to read L. Ron Hubbard again than to read a new criticism of him."
Actually he said it about Chaucer, but it's an interesting general
principle. Sometimes I agree. At other times I prefer a good critical
book about science fiction to actual SF, especially if the latter is by
L. Ron Hubbard.

Now I don't mean those dire academic volumes with titles like Some
Lesser-Known Aspects of Eighteenth-Century Utopian Fabulation in Albania.
The great SF/fantasy critics are mostly practising writers who praise
stories from an interestingly original angle or put the boot in with
joyful style and elegance – like Damon Knight with In Search
of Wonder (1956, but look for the expanded third edition of 1996),
Kingsley Amis long before his knighthood with New Maps of Hell
(1960), James Blish with The Issue at Hand (1964), Ursula K. Le
Guin with The Language of the Night (1979), Algis Budrys with
Benchmarks: Galaxy Bookshelf (1985) or John Clute with Strokes
(1988).

The SF criticism in my own home library fills thirteen feet of
shelves, so I could carry on listing titles for ages. However, the long
succession of names might become a little too like Beachcomber's vital
but fortunately imaginary reference work The Anthology of
Huntingdonshire Cabmen. In these degenerate latter days, there are
even several critical collections by me, of which it has often been said
... but never proved.

Here are some recommendations from recent reading, one dated 1987 and
three from 2014:

Robert Silverberg's Worlds of Wonder (the 1987 title) is
cunningly disguised as an anthology of classic SF: I didn't buy it when
it appeared because I knew all the stories, some by heart. Silly me.
What I missed is that each tale comes with an essay from master
craftsman Silverberg, taking it apart to show just what makes it a
classic. His revealing autobiographical introduction "The Making of
a Science-Fiction Writer" is also a must-read.

Similarly, Jo Walton revisits nearly 130 old favourites and ponders
why she loves or no longer loves them in What Makes This Book So
Great, a selection of her many hundreds of thoughtful posts in this
vein from the Tor.com blog. She
usually has something wise to say. I nodded often – in agreement,
I mean, not nodding off – and only rarely shook my head. Her
tactful meditation on SF Series That Went Downhill is full of sad
truths.

John Clute's latest nonfiction collection – there have been
several since that 1988 debut – is called Stay and as
usual throws you in at the deep end of a deep mind fond of occasional "studiously
flamboyant obscurities" ... to quote his
SF Encyclopedia
entry, written by one John Clute, who should know. Besides many densely
meaty reviews, Stay includes five short stories (where else
could you find an image like "an entablature of salamanders loosed
suddenly into a myoclonic can-can"?) and his 2006 mini-encyclopedia
The Darkening Garden: A Short Lexicon of Horror. Whose approach
to horror is like no other.

Adam Roberts – known to Princess Bride buffs as the
Dread Punster Roberts – publishes witty, learned criticism at a
great rate on his blog
Sibilant
Fricative. For reasons which are deeply unclear, Sibilant
Fricative the book collects material not from its namesake but from
his now-deleted former blog Punkadiddle. Besides being insightful, these
reviews include some of the funniest I've ever read: his annoylogistic
take on Neal Stephenson's Anathem, for example, or the epic
assault on all 11 volumes of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, with
extensive quotes from the master's prose. "He sounded like a
bumblebee the size of a cat instead of a mastiff." Of course he
did.

Someone said it's always better to read David Langford again than
to read him banging on about criticism. [H'm. This pithy aphorism seems
to need more work.]